


Pardon the Executioner

by cesau



Series: Duma Faithful AU [3]
Category: Fire Emblem Echoes: Mou Hitori no Eiyuu Ou | Fire Emblem Echoes: Shadows of Valentia, Fire Emblem Series
Genre: Angst, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-03-10
Updated: 2018-03-10
Packaged: 2019-03-27 01:33:17
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 14,200
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13870254
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/cesau/pseuds/cesau
Summary: Forsyth's lips twitched into a crooked smile. He opened his mouth, and the rot gushed over his tongue and between his teeth, dribbled over his lips to the ground and still he smiled. He laughed, and Python heard the sound of crunching leaves, and then Forsyth's voice was like the crackle of ice breaking over a frozen lake.“You killed me,” he said.Then, over his shoulder, like warmth returned, “You did worse than that.”Youmightbe able to read this standalone, if you're very fond of mysteries and unanswered questions.





	Pardon the Executioner

“For goodness sake, Python, get up.”

He heard the voice like some distant thing, and that feeling was strange enough for how familiar the sound should have been. Forsyth was usually much louder, and it seemed to Python all he heard now was a faint echo, a whisper out of reach. He had the notion he'd been left behind, even in this foggy haze; that Forsyth had run off without him again, probably into some fool errand, just because he seemed prone to them. Too far away, he thought—

And then Python woke up, eyes looking to the distance, though he couldn't recall why anymore. When his vision finally focused, he took in the sight of Lukas sitting at his bedside, and he knew there was something wrong about that, although he couldn't quite say what—except that of course it was strange for Lukas to be in his tent, but there was something beyond that, a gut feeling of wrongness—

Then his doubts felt justified when he saw the look of shock on Lukas's face, and it wasn't so much the shock as the level of unfiltered emotion, an open vulnerability he hadn't known the man capable of. Still caught between the realms of sleep and wakefulness, the contradiction there was enough to make Python question whether his dream had ended at all.

“You're awake,” Lukas said hoarsely, voice barely a whisper.

Python opened his mouth to respond, but the moment he began, the reply became a strangled cough and once the hacking had started, it kept on until his throat burned. When it ended, he looked up, expecting to see Lukas and his quiet smile holding out a glass of water, but the man had gone pale. He stood from his chair and backed away toward the door, stumbling in a strange gait, and Python thought he must have imagined the way he shook—after all, Lukas wouldn't have.

Lukas stumbled out the door without a word and, trying to swallow past the cotton feel of his mouth, Python considered that something had gone wrong.

Left alone, he finally took in his surroundings, and his bleary confusion solidified at the sight of the lavish room, finely decorated and painted in warm colors. It was a far-cry from the battered tent he'd grown accustomed to while marching with the Deliverance. Framed portraits of well-groomed strangers hung along the walls, and at the bedside table was a porcelain vase filled with what must have been fresh flowers, though he'd never cared much for those. From this vantage, he could see the footboard of the bed he lay in and its ornately carved knobs, and more than that he felt the softness of the sheets and quilt, and he couldn't imagine how he'd come to be in such a place. Lukas, however strange his behavior, now seemed the least jarring aspect of this image.

He was left to himself only a few minutes before the door opened again, but this new arrival brought him no comfort. She was a stranger to him, tall and dressed in the silky robes of a higher class lady than should have been anywhere near a man like Python. He might have called her attractive, if not for the dark shadows under her eyes or the waxen pallor of her face. Still, she stood with her shoulders back and her head held high, and she carried herself with such an air of confidence that for at least a moment, he fancied he saw the woman she was _meant_ to be—before he realized what a stupid idea that was; he'd never met her before in his life, and whatever she was or wasn't, her looks had nothing to do with her being here in this room with him now.

Her gaze flitted over him a quick moment, and then she stepped in where Lukas failed and fetched a pitcher of water off a dresser in the corner of the room, filling a glass and offering it to him. He drank eagerly, and when he was done, he looked up to see that same intrusive stare still directed his way. He smirked at her, for no reason other than that he was uncomfortable and so he thought she ought to be, too. The woman furrowed her brow. She placed herself in the chair next to his bedside, crossed one leg over the other, leaned forward, and rested her chin in her hand.

“What's your name?” she asked, voice low and teetering on the edge of sultry, but mostly just tired-sounding for the effort of it.

“Ain't you supposed to introduce yourself first?” Python said, relieved at the evenness of his voice this go-around. The look in the woman's eyes quickly flashed to anger, and he glared right back at her, almost glad to feel frustration overtake the fear creeping through his mind. She met his gaze for a long moment, and then she turned her head and sighed.

“At least you're talking,” she muttered. She turned back to face him, calm once more. “My name is Sonya, and I'm the woman who may have saved your life. It's interesting to me that you haven't yet realized the severity of your situation, so I'll be patient and ask again: what is your name?”

“Saved my life?” Python said incredulously.

“Your name,” she repeated. Python glared at her again, but she wouldn't be shaken. She stared at him impassively until he came to accept, hopelessly, that he had no staying power here, and no reason not to oblige her.

“Python,” he answered shortly, ashamed at the petulance in his tone.

“Your age?” She sounded almost bored, as if these questions were nothing more than routine to her, marking off some checklist in her mind. He wondered why she asked at all.

“Twenty-five,” he said.

“And where are you from?”

He grinned. “No place you've heard of.”

Her lack of reaction intensified Python's immediate dislike of her, and he frowned again. Unbothered, Sonya looked directly to his eyes, like she was searching for something there, and after a moment she asked, “What's the last thing you remember?”

The last thing he remembered—

Just before he'd opened his eyes, he recalled Forsyth nagging at him to get moving, but that was an everyday occurrence, and anyway, there was something off. An alien feeling began to creep up on him the more he thought about it, the memory caught somewhere between reality and a dream, and he couldn't decide which was the truth. The sensation of it was so disorienting, he forgot to wonder about any memory before that strangeness. Eventually, he gave up on remembering at all.

Where _was_ Forsyth, anyway? Where were any of the people he actually knew, and why did he have to deal with this intrusive woman instead of them? Sonya didn't look like any kind of healer he'd ever seen, and he couldn't imagine how or why she'd found her way to him. And she kept staring at him like some sort of grotesque sideshow attraction.

“Where'd Lukas go?” he grumbled.

“I don't know that he's coming back,” Sonya replied.

“That on your orders, or should I thank someone else?”

“I try not to stick my nose into other people's business, but I expect that man's had enough of taking orders,” Sonya said. “No, if he stays away, it's by his own judgment. Perhaps you'll understand once you've remembered.” A pause. “ _If_ you remember.”

“Remember _what_?” Python said.

Sonya offered him no answer, only looked to him and sighed. She stood, the chair scraping across the floor, and then she turned and began to leave.

Python moved to follow, and the effort it took just to slide his feet over the edge of the bed distracted him long enough that he didn't think better of trying to stand—the moment his feet hit solid ground, his knees buckled and he collapsed, grabbing wildly at the bed and nightstand in an attempt to catch himself. His arms failed him, too, slower than his mind, and all he accomplished was to bring the flower vase to floor with him, where it shattered with a sharp noise.

Laying on the floor, he stared at the shards of the vase, the trickle of spilled water and the petals that had torn away in the fall, a strange contrast to the dull wood of the floor. Behind him, he heard Sonya mutter under her breath—“Pathetic,” perhaps. Her gloved hands reached under his arms and lifted, and he tried as well as he could to assist her in that, but when he landed back in the bed halfway, it felt more like she'd tried to throw him. Carelessly, she yanked the blanket out from beneath him, lifted his legs into the bed proper, and covered him back up.

“Don't try that again,” she warned, and then she left, the vase still laying in pieces on the floor.

After she'd gone, Python attempted twice more to leave his room. The first, he got one leg over the edge of the bed before exhaustion overtook him, and then he must have passed out into a brief, dreamless sleep.

In the second, after he'd come to, still positioned awkwardly and feeling a fool, he was able to summon the willpower necessary to force his other foot to the floor. Supported by his shaking arms, he slowly lifted himself out of the bed and stood, for a moment, on his own two feet.

A moment was all it was. He stepped forward and began to fall, though he steadied himself just in time. He took two more wobbling steps before he collapsed, first his knees buckling and then his whole body crashing down upon the hardwood floor. He landed on his side, hissing at the blossoming pain in his shoulder and hip. The hissing quickly progressed to cursing as the pain dulled, and then to stubborn, embarrassed silence when he found himself unable to move.

That was where the other healer found him well over an hour later, still laid out on the floor and scowling miserably. He heard the door open though he couldn't see it, having managed at least to roll over onto his back by that point. He had no indication of who had entered until there was a shadow directly over him, face creased with worry. A curly-haired girl stared down at him with bright, wide eyes, her mouth forming a soft 'o' of surprise.

“Little help here?” Python moaned.

“Oh, no,” she said quietly, almost to herself. “Didn't Sonya warn you about that? Um, are you hurt?”

“Other than my pride?” Python said. He turned his head to get a better look at her, then winced at the sudden pain that shot straight from his neck down his spine. He caught his breath and hissed, “Yea, actually.”

The girl knelt down at his side and reached out, small hands freezing right before they made contact with his shoulder. “I don't want to make things worse,” she muttered. Her gaze flitted to the door and back and she bit her lip. “I'll just heal you a little bit, okay?”

“'A lot' works too,” Python suggested, but by the time he'd finished speaking, the cool wave of healing magic had come and gone. It mellowed the pain more to a dull ache, but he still wasn't able to sit up without assistance. Standing, he figured, was asking too much.

The girl was too slight to move him very far, but with her assistance, they managed to get him to the nearest wall, which he sat up and leaned against. Experimentally, he flexed his toes and, getting a response, attempted to move his legs. Still, the effort of it was more than it should have been, and he realized he wasn't likely to move of his own accord any time soon. For the first time, he wondered exactly how long he'd slept, that his muscles had grown so weak.

He looked up and saw the girl was still watching him curiously, stood a little distance away, alert and concerned. Whether that concern was for Python or herself, he was unsure—there was something almost cautious in her movements, in the way she kept glancing back to the door, as if gauging the distance between it and herself. She was nervous, that much was clear.

“You just gonna stand there, or what?” he said. “I don't know what's got you shakin' like a leaf, but I ain't in the habit of makin' kids cry. You wanna go, feel free.”

“Oh!” The girl brought her hands over her mouth, eyes widening. She hurried to his side again, a remorseful expression on her face. “I'm sorry, I'm not very good with strangers, so—” She stopped, frowned. “Can we...maybe start over? I'm Genny. I'm Sonya's...assistant.”

She hesitated, said the word with a shy smile, as if she were revealing to him some precious treasure. It reminded Python, absurdly, of Forsyth, who'd once announced with the same foolish pride that he—that the both of them—had been named lieutenants to Clive. Peons with titles, Python had called it, but it hadn't soured Forsyth's enthusiasm in the least.

“Python,” he introduced himself with a mock salute. “But I'm guessin' you already knew that.”

She giggled softly, covering her mouth as she did. He couldn't have said what warranted it, but she seemed to relax then. “I did,” she answered. “Anyway, the floor can't be very comfortable for you. Let's see if we can't get you back to bed.”

It was a process, to be sure. It took the better part of half an hour—and given the girl's diminutive build, Python spent an embarrassing portion of it dragging him _self_ across the floor on his hands and knees—but they did, by some strange miracle, manage to reintroduce him to the comforts of a more suitable resting spot. By the time he lay in bed again, his muscles were screaming at him in protest of the treatment it had taken to get that far, and he wasn't above begging Genny to work her spells again. Her response was a worried pout followed by apologetic refusal.

“I'm not supposed to use magic on you,” she said, sitting in the chair by his bedside. She was a more comforting sight than Sonya, he supposed, though he thought he'd like her better if she weren't so stuck on the woman's apparent rules. “It might make you feel a little better now, but there's no telling what it could do later on. It's just, we used so much before—”

“Before?” Python interrupted. He had a hard time believing she and Sonya had been very diligent in his healing, given the state he found himself in now. He wondered if it were possible to be hurt badly enough that you could be healed magically and still come out the other side as damaged as he felt then. As he mulled it over, he realized Genny had fallen silent, nervously wringing her hands in her lap. Python frowned, torn between his frustration and her obvious discomfort.

“How long have I been out?” he asked. The girl didn't answer, only turned her head away.

“You just need to focus on getting better—”

“A few weeks? A whole season?”

“A little while,” she said firmly. “But you shouldn't think about that. You should just think about your recovery.” Python thought he'd rather like to know what he was meant to be recovering _from_.

“Look, can you at least tell me where I am?” he said, looking up to the ceiling in frustration. “Last time I woke up in a bed this nice—ah, hell, I don't think I've _ever_ woken up in a bed this nice—but the last place I remember wakin' up at all was back at the Deliverance hideout, and this sure as hell ain't that. Not near enough dead things shamblin' around, for one.”

Genny let out a stilted squeak. When Python turned back to look at her, she'd gone ramrod-straight in her chair and she kept turning her head so that her eyes met anything but his own. He thought of Lukas, who'd run off at the sight of him. He thought of Forsyth, whose absence was becoming more conspicuous by the moment.

“Say...whatever happened to the Deliverance?” he chanced. Genny did look at him then, with a strange curiosity. He clarified, “Other than me an' Lukas, are any of those poor saps still kickin'?”

“Oh,” she said. “Well, of course. Where would they have gone?”

But none of them were _here_ , and he couldn't think of a reason for that, short of their being physically barred. If nothing else, he knew one man who couldn't have been kept away, even under orders. He felt, quite suddenly, a weight behind his eyes, and he realized he was clenching his jaw. He forced himself to relax, pushed his doubts out of his mind as a dark certainty overtook him: the past was passed, and whatever he'd forgotten, there was nothing to be done about it now.

Still, logic be damned: he wanted to _know_.

“Then what happened?” he asked.

“I can't say,” Genny replied. “I'm sorry.” She stood, looked him over once more, and he flinched at the unabashed pity in her eyes. “You'll have to remember on your own.”

* * *

The bow in his hands was sturdy and smooth beneath his fingers, the weapon so familiar to him now that its operation was nearly thoughtless. Sometimes it seemed to him that the entire world could fall away the moment a target wandered into his sight. This one would be easy enough. There was the bare hint of a challenge in the limited visibility offered by dim torchlight, but his target wasn't a small one, and it wasn't as if it could run away.

The air was cool and somewhat damp, but his fingers were steady as he plucked an arrow from the quiver on his back. As he nocked it on the string, lifted the bow and lined up his shot, his vision centered, heedless of the dark. The noise of the Deliverance soldiers around him faded away until all he could sense was this one, perfect shot. He drew his arm back...

“Python!”

_Thwack!_

The arrow landed just right of center of the straw target. Python scratched his head and groaned. That narrowed vision of concentration was gone now, and he found himself standing once more in the miserable crypt the Deliverance had taken to calling home. The low light was almost a blessing, by his approximation, if it meant a limited view of the cracked brown floors or the cobweb-covered walls. Their hideout was battered and crumbling, not unlike the skeleton crew of an army which manned it.

The greater trouble with a place like this, however, was the way noise traveled. When he'd snuck away for training, he'd picked a tunnel well off the main paths for a reason, but he could still hear the racket of his allies' goings-on echoing through the high-walled chambers. Those level voices proved enough of a distraction; there was no ignoring the clamor that always accompanied his oldest friend.

“What is it _now_ , Forsyth?” he said, turning to the open door. Forsyth stared at him, brow furrowed, mouth hanging open as if he meant to speak. He closed it, tilted his head. He narrowed his eyes and frowned.

“Were you...practicing?” he ventured.

“Nothin' better to do,” Python said, slinging his bow back over his shoulder. Nothing better until now, at least. “Anyway, shouldn't you be happy about that? Sheesh, I figured you'd be cryin' tears of joy, you ever caught me at this.”

The fact that he did train on occasion was one of Python's best-kept secrets—partly for the easygoing image he liked to uphold, and partly because he preferred to be left alone to do it. It surprised him that Forsyth had never sussed it out before, and the reaction he got now was almost disappointing.

“I suppose it just doesn't seem very like you,” Forsyth said with a distracted frown. “Of all the places I checked, I never thought I'd find you _here_.”

“You were lookin' for me?” Python teased, grinning wide. Forsyth, oblivious to his intentions as ever, brightened immediately and clapped his hands together. The change was jarring only for a moment; Forsyth's moods had never been a constant thing.

“Sir Clive has called for us!” Forsyth said excitedly. He was already on his way back out the door, into the vaulted hallways that linked the chambers of the crypt. Python followed after, making no effort to conceal his amused grin. “There's been talk of a new mission, you know! Something to the south. He and Sir Lukas are gathering the most capable soldiers.”

“Uh-huh,” Python said, unimpressed. “So what's the blue-blood want with _us_?”

“I keep telling you, Sir Clive isn't like the other nobles we've met,” Forsyth insisted. “He recognizes hard work and perseverance when he sees it! If you'd just let _yourself_ see it, Python...”

Python recognized the beginnings of one of Forsyth's favorite lectures, and he was more than glad to filter the entire thing out. Forsyth, for his part, didn't slow down or even turn to face Python while he spoke, and Python supposed that was natural—he'd given this speech often enough that it likely came to him as easily as Python ignored it.

There was an amusing contradiction between Forsyth and other men, where volume was concerned. In most men, a raised voice would demand attention, signal that something had gone either terribly wrong or terribly right. In Forsyth, perpetual shouting was more to be expected. 'Loud' was his natural state of being. 

No, it was when Forsyth lowered his voice that Python knew to worry, and it seemed he lacked the inclination to muzzle himself here. His voice echoed unashamedly through the wide-open crypt. While Forsyth chattered on about Clive and Lukas and every other noble soldier his overly trusting eyes had come upon since joining the Deliverance, Python mused that those same people could likely hear every adoring word from clear across the base.

Let them listen, he thought. They were more likely to appreciate the sentiment. To Python, the words meant little. It was easier, he found, to focus on Forsyth himself, bounding down the halls with a peculiar brand of childish, optimistic energy that was uniquely his own. Whenever he spoke of Clive and the Deliverance, his face took on an expression of incontrovertible faith, eyes gone wide and shining, mouth set in dreamer's smile. That wasn't the sort of devotion Python had ever understood, and he'd never really admired it, either—but he had the sense to appreciate the look of it on Forsyth.

He thought quite suddenly that he'd missed that look. That he'd missed Forsyth. When had he last seen him so careless and free? No, some dark corner of his mind insisted, when had he last seen him at all? Python stopped short, a strange and senseless frustration setting into his nerves. He felt the whispers in his mind, stirrings of doubt, chill awareness creeping into his consciousness—

Forsyth stopped as well, turned to favor him with a disapproving frown. “Keep up, would you Python?” he said. “This is no time for dilly-dallying; I wasted enough time trying to track you down in the first place.”

“Yea, yea,” Python muttered. He looked down, scratching his head. The disorientation hadn't left him, and the sight of Forsyth only intensified it. As he tried very hard to ignore a growing certainty that something was wrong, staring intently at the filthy floor, he found himself asking, “Anyway, speakin' of looking for people, where the hell have _you_ been?”

The words had left his mouth before he even understood them, and he snapped his head back up to find Forsyth watching him strangely. And the dark of his mind whispered once more, in a voice that was not his own, one that was familiar somehow, though he couldn't place it. _There_ , it said. _There, you've found it._

“What are you talking about?” Forsyth said slowly. “If you needed to find me, you could have just checked the patrol schedule. Some of us do follow the orders we're given—”

“No, I meant—”

Python blinked, and the cracked walls and the brown floors and the dull cacophony of sound were gone. He stood in an open field, the sun long gone, the whole of it barely visible by torchlight in the distance. He saw nothing in this dark. He was alone, between the dull orange of the fire at every side. It was silent. It was cold. And then the nothingness spoke, and it spoke in Forsyth's voice.

“I've always been here,” it said. “I'm right where you left me.”

* * *

Python woke from the nightmare in a cold sweat, hands shaking and stomach turning, and he knew Forsyth was dead.

He couldn't have said where that certainty came from, only that the seed had been planted in that first day of wakefulness and now it had blossomed, and there was no other explanation for the man's absence. And after all, if Python had landed himself in such dire straits as to have lost all memory of the events preceding, Forsyth must have been there with him when it happened. Forsyth was likely the _reason_ that it happened; left to his own devices, Python was a shrewd and practical man, but wherever Forsyth deigned to go, Python had always been bound to follow, and trouble therefore found a happy home at both of their feet.

This last time, he decided, he must have followed Forsyth into some greater danger, and chance had seen fit to allow only one of them to walk away. Python had lived, and Forsyth had died.

_Forsyth was dead._

Once he realized it, that seemed like the only way it could have gone.

The weight of those thoughts must have shone on his face, because when Genny arrived later in the morning, she looked pained at just the sight of him. Her concern surprised him, once he'd noticed it—so lost in thought, he wasn't aware of her presence at all until she was at his side, her small hand on his shoulder. She called to him softly until he looked her way.

“Mr. Python?” she said, and he forced himself not to laugh at the ridiculous salutation as she continued, “Are you feeling okay? You're a little pale.”

Genny was too, he noted with faint surprise. Something about his current state had disturbed her, and he thought that ought to have meant something to him. Perhaps it was a mixture of his isolation and the haunting dream, but he still felt as if he weren't entirely awake; as if reality were a distant thing, out of his reach. Whatever the basis of her worries, it was beyond his understanding. He smirked at Genny, ashamed of his own helplessness and desperate to hide that weakness.

“My legs don't work and my memory's shot,” he said. “I've seen better days.”

“Oh,” Genny said quietly. She frowned. “But there's nothing new?” She sounded almost hopeful, and Python felt no hope at all. He snorted.

“This is _all_ new to me,” he said, gesturing to the room around him. “You're gonna have to be more specific.”

“Did you remember anything?” Genny clarified. She sat back in the chair beside his bed, an inquisitive look on her face. She seemed bolder then, different from the meek girl he'd come to associate her with in their short acquaintance. Her curiosity reminded him disturbingly of Sonya, and it was enough to raise him into defensiveness.

“No,” he told her briskly, honestly. “Y'know, it might help if you told me what you wanted from me.”

“I just want you to get better,” Genny said. “It's what we all want.” She smiled sweetly, and Python bit back a groan at the sudden shift in attitude. Her strange determination and anxiety had all but disappeared, and she was the girl from yesterday once more, and he knew she would tell him nothing. He doubted very much that her words were true, either—at the very least, her master had seemed to care less for Python's well-being and more for the state of his memory—but for her part, Genny seemed genuine enough. He believed at least that _she_ was interested in seeing to his recovery.

“Alright, fine,” he conceded. “Let's get me better.”

The next several hours were spent exercising muscles in his arms and legs that had gone weak from disuse (after an indeterminable amount of time, apparently, because Genny refused to divulge exactly how long it had been). She offered him a finely polished cane, which he first scoffed at and then became hopelessly dependent upon. By the end of the day, he was able to stand on his own, if only for a few minutes.

Genny seemed pleased with his progress, though when it came time for her to depart, she asked him not to exert himself once he was alone.

“I won't be back until morning, so if you fall again like yesterday, no one will be able to help you,” she said. “Try to stay in bed, okay?”

He was as keen on her advice as he had been on Sonya's. Only minutes after she'd gone, he pushed his legs out of bed, reached for his cane, and forced himself to stand. He was still exhausted from the hours of work beforehand, and it took all of his effort, but he remained upright. Slowly, carefully, he made his way to the door. Halfway there, he stumbled and fell, but he grit his teeth and pulled himself back up, using the cane as leverage. His arms shook and his shins screamed in protest, but he kept moving.

Finally, he made it to the door, and he reached for the handle. He tried to turn it, and it stuck halfway.

It was locked.

He leaned his forehead against the door, breathing heavy. He turned around and fell back against it, and he slid to the floor, laughing.

_Getting better,_ Genny had called it. She'd sat with him, lied through her teeth and acted as if she intended to help. She was a healer, after all, and he was her ward. But that hadn't been the truth, he saw now. Python was no patient.

He was a prisoner.

* * *

When next Python woke, his exhaustion had faded, the burn of tired muscles gone entirely. Also gone were the lavish room and his unwanted cane, neither of which seemed necessary anymore. The former he had never wanted, and the latter was redundant when he had two perfectly good legs to walk with. Python stood easily without assistance and surveyed this new location.

He was in a castle, that much was clear by the old stone which surrounded him. He was standing in a corridor, the walls lined with rich tapestries and lit by elaborate sconces, metal twisted into vague, vile shapes, though he couldn't have guessed what they were made to imitate. There were cobwebs in every dark corner, and the better part of the dusty stone floor was covered by a worn red runner. The few barred windows let in nothing more than the dark of a moonless night.

There wasn't another soul in sight. He set off to correct this problem.

He walked at first, down one hallway and then the next. Then he began to run. Each corridor was the twin of the last and he kept running from them—running and running until finally, there was change, he was no longer alone, and his feet skidded to a stop at the figure he'd nearly overtaken. It was standing before a weathered green tapestry, an old and battered and ugly thing. Python barely spared the mosaic a glance, only long enough to see that it was a bland depiction of a castle in a field. His eyes were drawn more to the figure before it. His back was turned, but to Python, Forsyth was hard to miss at any angle.

“Forsyth?” he said, breathless. He reached out, hand above Forsyth's shoulder. “What happened?”

“You killed me, of course,” Forsyth replied.

Python froze, hand hovering in the air. He opened his mouth—

And then there was his voice being called from further away, somewhere down the halls, an insistent, bright, “Python!” He turned to his right, and there was another figure coming into view, foggy at first but then it suddenly seemed the hall lit up, because that too was Forsyth, hurrying his way with a grin on his face.

Python looked back to the tapestry, but it—and the other Forsyth—were gone. Now there was only this cheerful vision, whose smile widened as it stood before Python.

“I was looking all over for you,” Forsyth said. There was a flush to his cheeks, as if he'd been running some time. “It's these confounded halls, you know—it's so easy to get turned around—”

Python, without thinking of it, leaned forward and drew him into an embrace, arms locked over Forsyth's back as his hands tried to convince himself that this was reality, that what he held wouldn't disappear. Forsyth gasped softly, and then Python felt his arms come up around him, his hands resting on his shoulders. Python closed his eyes and willed himself not to begin shaking. He'd forgotten something important, he knew, but he pushed away that quiet alarm and renewed his grip.

“You idiot,” he muttered. “You _idiot_. I missed you.”

“I missed you, too,” Forsyth said quietly, sadly. Python drew back and kissed him then, just for the sake of it, only because he could and because this loneliness permeating the air was so wrong—wrong, when they'd finally found each other and there shouldn't have been any pain to that. Their lips met, and Forsyth returned the kiss as eagerly as he'd ever done—it was in his nature and he'd probably never known another way to do it, bless the fool—

Python parted his mouth and tasted dirt; Forsyth's lips were like ice. Python's eyes snapped open and he pushed Forsyth away, brought his hand up to cover his mouth and nearly gagged. He'd forgotten, and now he remembered. Some things were better left buried.

“You're dead,” Python accused. “I know you're dead.”

“Python—”

Python closed his eyes and Forsyth disappeared. When he opened them again, he was back in the silent hallway with the ugly green tapestry, staring at Forsyth's frozen back. He reached out this time, grabbed his shoulder and spun him around—

And the expression that met him was worse than anything else. Forsyth looked to him, and he was terrified.

* * *

He kept his nightmares to himself.

They were a recurring thing, and he was quick to realize he hadn't had a single dreamless night since waking up in this strange domestic prison. The contents of those dreams weren't always easy to recall; in fact, his recollection generally began and ended with nausea, a nameless guilt, and the irrevocable knowledge that, whatever had happened, he'd lost something he couldn't get back.

(He did ask Genny about Forsyth, about Lukas—even about Clive, once—but she was as generous with information on that subject as with every other line of questioning.)

He spent the next three weeks recovering physically, if not mentally. Every morning, Genny would unlock his door with a meal in hand, and she would spend hours helping him to relearn basic movements he never would have guessed could have been forgotten. She asked him regularly about his memory, and he told her honestly that he was as lost as ever on that front. He wondered at her relief, but he knew better than to ask.

Sonya visited him rarely, and always at the sight of him her expression would twist into what Python considered a completely unfounded look of disgust.

“Did I do somethin' to you?” he asked once. “Somethin' I don't remember?”

“I couldn't even begin to guess at the things you've done that you no longer remember,” Sonya said. She made no effort to conceal her scorn. “But to me, personally? No. By the time I met you, you were barely capable of breathing, let alone offending me.”

That, of course, raised more questions his caretakers refused to answer, but the sting of it had begun to dull. Python began to wonder if he was better off not knowing. It was a feeling that grew with each passing day and the nightmares that followed. But the urge to let it rest couldn't overtake the guilt, that need to know Forsyth's fate and whether those vaguely recollected accusations were true: _“You killed me.”_

When he was left alone at night, locked safely away in his room, those thoughts were locked in with him.

* * *

He was first aware of the stench permeating the air, a fetid mix of natural rot and human waste. The smell of it was painful enough on its own, but then the air was so chill that it burned his throat as he breathed. He was lying on his back, eyes screwed shut. He laid his palms on the ground, wincing at the contact with cold, damp stone, though his fingers were nearly numb enough not to feel it. He pushed himself off the ground, head swimming with vertigo.

He opened his eyes.

It was dark; no natural sunlight reached this place. Torches supplied only dull luminescence, hung ramshackle along walls Python could barely see beyond the barrier of iron bars. He was in a prison cell—a dungeon, rather, if his estimation was correct. It seemed to him this sort of cold and dank could only occur underground. There were small puddles on the ground near his hands, which he was relieved to see had only been formed by water dripping down from cracks in the ceiling. He chose not to examine his cell any further, certain his findings would not be pleasant.

Shivering, he crawled to the bars and leaned forward as far as he could, straining to see down the hall outside one way or the other, but his vision was obscured. The only thing he could clearly see was the cell across from his, equally dark and wholly unoccupied. It was quiet, the only sound that of the dripping water. Python coughed, and it echoed along the walls.

He tried to remember how long he'd been down here, among the grime and the silence, and the only answer his mind supplied was, _Too long_. His throat was dry and his belly tight. He reached out to grasp at the bars of his cell door, and he was unsurprised at the sight of his knuckles, cracked and stained with dried blood. His hands had ached from the start.

He didn't startle at the sudden noise from down the hall, too tired to react with anything more than a weak curiosity. He recognized the heavy stomp of multiple sets of boots, and of something lighter scraping across the ground.

He barely glanced at the soldiers as they came into view, all his attention directed instead to the man they dragged along by the arms. They threw Forsyth into the empty cell across from his, and he landed inside limp as a ragdoll, body hitting the floor with a vicious thump. He landed with his back turned to Python, and the flesh there was torn open in bright red lines. His shoulders moved erratically, and Python clearly heard his shuddering, gasping breaths, coming first too quickly and then much too slow.

Python opened his mouth to call out to him, and he thought his own heart might have stopped as his vision suddenly went dark.

“Don't look,” Forsyth murmured. One warm hand covered Python's eyes, shielded him from that broken sight. The other rested over his heart. Python felt the pressure of Forsyth's body pressed against his back, heard the voice over his shoulder, right by his ear. He licked his chapped lips, hands still gripping the iron bars. When he spoke, his voice came out more clearly than it should have, given the dryness of his throat.

“What happened to you?” Python said.

“This isn't real,” Forsyth told him. “Come with me.”

Still holding his hand over Python's eyes, he urged him to his feet. When they stood, he uncovered his eyes and Python felt the warmth at his back fade as Forsyth stepped away. Python opened his eyes to the mottled browns of the Deliverance hideout, and he turned to see Forsyth staring at him, a contemplative look on his face. He seemed unharmed. Python looked down to his own hands, and all traces of blood and muck had disappeared. He felt no aches or pain or hunger, only a sort of sudden clarity, as if he'd been returned to himself. The memory of the prison cell began to fade, each passing moment pushing it further out of reach.

Python looked around at the dust-covered walls, the ancient tombs, the scatterings of provisions left behind by any number of distracted Deliverance recruits. The crypt had been a mess when they'd found it, and the addition of several dozen mannerless young men hadn't offered any improvement. He smirked.

“Y'know, I always hated this place,” he said.

“But I loved it,” Forsyth replied, a faraway look in his eyes. He smiled once at Python—strange, distant and uncharacteristically calm—and then he turned and walked away. Caught by surprise, Python was still for a moment before he moved to follow, but when he reached the open hallway and called Forsyth's name, the man only kept on walking with his back turned.

Python followed his unwavering figure through the empty halls. They were silent, but the strangeness of that hadn't occurred to him. Rather, he only realized when he tried to call out to Forsyth again, and his own voice failed to produce sound. He froze where he stood, gaping like a fish, as that understanding sank in. He reached up to touch his lips, felt them move beneath his fingers. He looked down to his feet, stomped one boot down on the ground, and was rewarded only with a noiseless kick of dust.

He looked up again in that oppressive silence, and Forsyth was no longer alone. He stood just at the end of the hall, half his body turned to Python—and the other half too, because despite the impossibility of it, Python was staring at _himself_ as well, the two of them scant inches apart. They were speaking wordlessly, Forsyth gesticulating wildly and smiling wide, his own double sporting a confident smirk. It must have been how they'd always looked to an outsider, the two of them. It should have been right.

Yet there was a sickening disorientation to it, to watching his body move without his permission, to seeing it so close to Forsyth and to feel nothing from it. But it wasn't his body, not really—he was here and it was there, and it was something else wearing his skin, and a cool dread overtook him at the moment he understood that he had lost all control. It froze to ice as he considered that Forsyth had been lost there with him.

He watched as his doppelganger pulled a knife from his belt. He watched as it was raised to Forsyth's heart. He watched as Forsyth continued to smile, even as the thing that was not Python held Forsyth's shoulder with one hand, gripping the handle of the knife with the other. He watched as the blade was plunged into his chest, yielding, smiling, no resistance—

“Stop!”

His desperate cry was heard and he was back in the cell, staring at Forsyth's battered body—Forsyth, bruised and bloody and still alive, and it almost felt worse. Almost, but there was still hope this way; Forsyth lived and Python, locked behind these iron bars, could never reach him. He was safe, he was suffering. If Python kept his distance, he might live. Living might be worse. Python couldn't look away.

There were footsteps, and then at the corner of his vision, a man in a hooded silk robe, one pale finger outstretched and pointed to Forsyth. His hood shadowed his face, and if Python had tried, he still could only have made out thin lips moving slowly over papery skin.

“Would you like to end this?” he said. “It is within your power. You need only say you wish it.”

And Python answered—

* * *

“Absolutely not.”

Sonya rested against the locked door, arms crossed, one heeled boot tapping impatiently on the floor. She flipped her hair, something Python had come to understand as a sign of frustration, and a vain one, at that. He recalled that his first impression of the woman had been one of tired beauty, and he could see now how accurate he'd been: her exhaustion hadn't faded entirely, but the bags under her eyes had lightened, either by rest or by virtue of the cosmetics she'd taken to wearing. She shook her head at Python's continued protests, eliciting a soft chime from her dangling earrings.

“Come on, I've been up and walkin' on my own for a week now,” Python complained. “How long are you gonna keep me locked up in here like some kind of prisoner?”

“For as long as I like,” Sonya replied. “You still don't even know what you've done. And until _I_ know you're in control of yourself, I won't be responsible for loosing you on the castle.”

“The castle?” It was another piece of the puzzle whose shape Python couldn't imagine, but he still reached greedily for every hint thereof. Sonya scowled. Python couldn't have said guessed whether it was more for his impertinence or her own carelessness in letting their location slip, but he pressed on regardless. “So we're in a castle? Where? _Why_?”

“Perhaps you already know the answer,” Sonya said. He looked away and she smirked. Standing proudly before the door, she positioned herself a barrier between himself and the outside world, and if he were more a fool, Python might have laughed at this thin, armorless guard. Even in his weakened state, a woman of her size would have proved no challenge in a physical fight. But the manner with which she carried herself spoke to power, and Python recognized the confident affect of a natural-born mage when he saw it. Sonya might have deigned herself a healer, but he had no doubt her true talents lay elsewhere.

It was fortunate, then, that he had no intention of fighting her. Nor had he intended to meet with her at all, today, but the decision had been taken out of his hands. It was Genny who had first come to his room that morning, as he'd come to expect. But then he'd done something she _hadn't_ expected, and Sonya's presence was a direct result of that.

In all his time under their care, Python had never asked for his freedom. He had understood from the start that it was a wasted effort; he'd known it from the first time he had tried and failed to turn the handle of his door. If his captors meant to keep him, there was little he could do about it in his current state. And so he'd accepted his lot, and then planned around it.

The key to escape was a simple knife.

He'd acquired it only days after his awakening, as Genny brought him his dinner on a small tray (they'd always kept him well-fed, he had to give them that). Frazzled as Genny still was at that point, he was able to distract her long enough to take a dinner knife off the tray and hide it under his pillow. She hadn't noticed, and then it was only a matter of working the thing into a usable shape. He had a shard of the broken vase still under the bed. He had the thick, heavy dresser to strike it against. But flattening and trimming the dull metal had been a time-consuming and not entirely fruitful process that had taken several weeks.

The knife lay beneath his pillow now, and whether it would work for his purposes remained to be seen. All he'd meant by pestering Genny that morning with requests to be released was to frighten her off for the remainder of the day, so that he might find the time uninterrupted to put his plan to action. But then she'd gone and called for reinforcements, and Sonya was proving more difficult to disperse.

“Just let me out for an hour,” he pleaded. “Half an hour, even.”

“Are you really trying to bargain with me?” she said. “You've got nothing I want, and I've no incentive to listen to your childish demands.”

Her irritation was plain to see, and Python capitalized on it. He'd always had a knack for getting under people's skin. Whether it was a skill he'd been born with or one honed with time, it had always served him well. Once, he'd made a game of testing how well he could needle a person before the cracks in their mask would start to show—a game usually played on Forsyth, but then his mind was going places he meant to avoid. He cleared his head and grinned at Sonya.

“What, basic human decency's not incentive enough?” he said. “Far as I can tell, I never did any crime worth locking me up for. I mean, if I did, feel free to shout it out whenever, but the way I see it, right now, I'm bein' held against my will for no reason at all.”

“You can see it however you want,” Sonya said. “I'm still not letting you go.”

“Well, now it's startin' to sound personal.” He leaned back, arms behind his head, and made a show of looking to the ceiling, as if he were considering her words. “Is this some sorta _thing_ for you? 'Busty seductress has her way with crippled hostage?'” He grinned. “Y'know, there's a lot I'm willing to try—I'm nothin' if not adventurous—but I'm just not into that.”

He looked down just in time to see the last evidence of Sonya's startled gape before it morphed into an incredulous smile. If he'd thrown her off balance, it was only for a moment. He should have known better than to use a strategy like that on a woman as confident as this. Haughtily, she said, “You're an ambitious man, aren't you?”

“I try,” he replied. “Sometimes.”

Sonya shook her head. “You might consider directing your efforts toward a more worthy goal.” She smiled sweetly. “Would some time alone help you to think?”

It had been his intent all along, and he struggled to maintain the expression of stubborn annoyance that would convince her that he viewed isolation as punishment, not reward. Petulant silence was his best response, and she received it with cruel satisfaction. With a triumphant smirk, she turned and opened the door, walked through and closed it behind her, and then he heard the click of the turning lock.

He counted down in his head, exactly five minutes, before he threw the covers off his bed, retrieved his reshaped knife, and rushed to the door. He tried the handle and it stuck, as expected. The lock was a simple one, only a small keyhole set in metal below the polished door handle.

He brought his makeshift lockpick up to the keyhole. He had little confidence in the shape of the knife or its strength, but he was prepared to work at this task as long as it took. He positioned it before the lock—

And it didn't fit. He'd worn it down as well as he could these last weeks, and still it was too large. If he attempted to whittle it down any further, he ran the risk of snapping it in half and having to start over with a new knife entirely. Frustrated, he tried tilting the utensil this way and that, aiming for some magic angle that would grant him access to the lock. He fumbled with it for perhaps ten minutes before he realized it was hopeless.

He knelt on the floor, head leaning against the wooden door, and cursed under his breath. Failure was not an option; he was leaving this room today, one way or another. The questions beating at his mind were becoming more than he could bear, and his answers lay beyond this confinement.

It was with small hope that he raised the knife once more, reaching this time for the space between the door and wall. He slid the knife between the crack of the door and its frame, lifted it up to where it should have latched. Miraculously, he heard the telltale click of it coming undone.

He honestly hadn't expected it to work, and when it did, he nearly laughed. He supposed it was to his benefit that his captors were strangers to him: anyone who'd caught even the barest glimpse of his personality should have known he would try to escape at some point, and that they'd used such poor security was baffling. He was grateful for it anyway as he turned the handle and pushed the door open.

His first thought upon stepping into the hallway was one of wretched humor. _He knew this place._ Whatever circumstance had led to it, he'd been brought to Zofia Castle. At his last remembrance, Desaix had ruled this place, and Python had never truly expected that to change. Yet here he stood, in the immaculate halls of the royal castle, and if Desaix still held the throne, Python should have been marked for death. So very much had changed.

He crossed the hall in a daze and reached an open window. He placed his shaking hands on the sill and leaned out to feel a cool, fresh breeze and the warmth of the sun on his face. He looked down into an open courtyard, the castle gardens, splashes of color he'd never found much use for in his time here before, and he nearly overlooked them now. But among that color was the thing he'd sought, and he headed there now.

The Deliverance had only maintained control of Zofia Castle a short time, but its richness compared to Python's surroundings up to that point had left a strong impression. He had little trouble navigating the hallways and staircases now until he found himself before the gardens, that courtyard lined by flowering hedges and tall pillars, a fountain at its center.

At the base of the fountain was a marble bench, and Lukas sat there, a thoughtful look on his face, staring off into the clear blue sky. He was surrounded on all sides by green and yellow and pink and white, and the red of his hair fit as natural against this backdrop as anything else. Seamless, as if he belonged there in the calm of it. It was a wonder Python had noticed him at all from the vantage of the window.

“Lukas,” he said.

The last time they'd met, it had been at Python's awakening, and Lukas had run from him. Python nearly expected the same now, for Lukas to see him and pale, frightened of whatever thing Python had become in his missing time.

But Lukas turned at the sound of his voice, and when he met Python's gaze, there was no fear in his eyes. Resignation, perhaps, but no panic or disgust. He didn't smile. He didn't move to greet him. He looked him over briefly from his place at the fountain, and then he turned his gaze back to the sky.

“Python,” he said. “Are you recovering well?”

Python let out of a breath of relief. He moved to join Lukas on the bench, careful to keep his distance. He still felt unsure of his companion's resolve. He looked to the clear blue sky and wondered what Lukas saw in it, because to his eyes it was only another empty canvas. He thought he'd have been glad to see it after so long, but he felt nothing. The warmth of the sun, the sweet smell of the flowers, the sounds of trilling birdsong and the gentle trickle of the fountain: he felt nothing.

“I'm alive, ain't I?” he said.

Lukas hummed softly. “So it would seem.”

Still his head was turned up, and Python began to suspect there was nothing to the sky at all. No, he realized, Lukas was only searching for an excuse not to look his way. His legs hadn't moved, but he was running all the same. Python groaned in frustration and ran his hand through his hair. He nearly reached out to grab Lukas by the shoulder, to force _some_ reaction out of the man, but he restrained the impulse as soon as it reared itself. If he might have one ally left, he shouldn't squander that.

“Alright, Luke, level with me,” he said. “What the hell happened?”

“How do you mean?” Lukas replied.

“Don't give me that,” Python warned. “I _know_ somethin' happened, but no one'll tell me what.” He felt his frustration bubbling up beneath his skin, a dull rage that failed to take shape and instead transformed into near desperation. It broke through his voice in faint panic as he said, “They look at me and I can't tell if they're afraid of breakin' me, or if they think I'm gonna break _them_ , and I don't even know which one's worse anymore. So c'mon, tell me what's going on. Just what the hell did I do? What did I do _wrong_?”

Lukas finally looked at him then, plainly, apprising. There was an unnatural blankness to his gaze. He had always been reserved, but Python had once fancied there'd been a clever gleam to those eyes, as if Lukas were seeing the truth of the world and laughing at some humor which only revealed itself to him. There was no hint of that now, not in his eyes or anywhere else in his expression. To Python, it felt almost as if he were staring at some lifeless doll. Lukas tilted his head, and Python shuddered.

“You sold your soul,” Lukas told him. After a moment, with no particular interest: “To Duma, I believe.”

“My soul,” Python repeated slowly, lips curving into an incredulous smirk as the impossibility of it swam through his mind. What had his soul ever been worth, that someone would think to take it from him? He knew as much about witches as he did any other magical thing, but he had the vague notion that a soul wasn't something that could just be given away—not on its own, not without a price, and the thought that some poor fool had considered it a wise investment to buy _his_ was laughable—and so he did, unable to contain his humor. Lukas continued to stare.

“A Rigelian mage in the company of Queen Celica restored you,” Lukas continued. “I was present for a part of that process. There were multiple occasions where she thought she'd succeeded, only for you to revert to your previous state. I imagine the increased security around your chambers is for fear that her cure still may not be permanent.”

Python supposed the knowledge that he might regress should have unsettled him, but for all the turmoil of his mind, he knew it was his own. He could not recall the sensation of having lost his will, but he was somehow certain that whatever cure Sonya had wrought, it wouldn't fade this time. And in any case, that had been only the beginnings of his questions for Lukas. The question he truly meant to ask had not yet been broached.

“Forsyth...” Python began. Lukas said nothing, and Python realized he would have to speak the words himself. Delaying it any further wouldn't ease the pain of hearing the response. Moreover, he didn't know how long he had before his escape would be discovered. He looked to the ground and forced his lips to move. “He's dead, isn't he?”

“He is,” Lukas replied. “We found you near his body. You'd stopped fighting. It's the only reason you were taken in alive. And we hadn't realized, at that point...”

He trailed off, and Python grinned and felt disgusted by it. “What, that I'd dropped my humanity somewhere along the line?”

“No, that was fairly obvious,” Lukas said, ignoring the barb, or perhaps missing it entirely. “What had happened to you was clear; a transaction such as yours brings about significant physical changes. In the eyes mostly, but the toll it had taken on your body was quite apparent. What we hadn't realized was what you'd done.”

“What I'd done? Guess we can add that to the list of things I don't remember,” Python said. “Assuming there's any room left; it's gettin' kinda lengthy. So what _did_ I do—worse than sellin' my soul, anyway?” He feared the answer, but his own resolve required he ask. _You killed me_ , Forsyth had said. Python had been found near his body. What other explanation could there be, other than this simple thing?

“You've not seen Clair or Mathilda, then?” Lukas said. “I expect that's for the best. You might take care to postpone that meeting indefinitely, for their sake as much as yours.”

It took a moment for it to sink in, the answer so far from what Python expected. “Clive?” he said, confused. Lukas nodded, and Python felt the stirrings of a cautious relief, even as he knew the guilt would set in later. “Then Forsyth—”

“What of him?” Lukas said shortly. Perhaps there was still some fire left to him, because he seemed to have gleaned Python's direction, understood his lack of interest in Clive's fate and become bothered by it. “Did you think you killed him? I saw his body. It wasn't your doing.”

There was the full wash of relief then, and Python let out a breath he hadn't realized he was holding in. This was the answer he'd needed: the solution to his persistent nightmares and their relentless accusations. _You killed me_ , they said, but he hadn't. Forsyth was dead, but it wasn't by Python's hand.

Yet he was still dead. Of course the relief ebbed and Python felt only emptiness, and he wondered when he would begin to grieve. Surely there was enough left of him for that.

He was unaware of any motion or expression he made at those thoughts, but whatever his unconscious movement, it solicited a soft sigh from Lukas.

“We buried him,” Lukas said. “He was given proper rites, the same as any Deliverance soldier.”

“He would've wanted that,” Python said.

It meant nothing to Python. Dead was dead, he knew, and a corpse couldn't appreciate what was done to it. He'd never spoken to Forsyth about religion, had no idea whether the man had believed in any afterlife, but if there was anything like a spirit left behind—Python thought briefly of the figure in his dreams and wondered—if his spirit remained, Forsyth would have been glad of those rites. His pride had always been in his just cause.

Then there was nothing more to say. Python sat with Lukas on the marble bench, the world continuing to move around them in bright color and vibrant sound, even as they sat in dour silence.

“So that's it,” Python said finally. “That's the big mystery: I sold my soul.” He grinned wryly. “No wonder you all keep lookin' at me like I'm some kinda monster. I _was_ one. Or, hell, maybe I still am. You figure a guy'd have to be pretty twisted to make a deal like that in the first place, right?”

“Do you think so?” Lukas said, unnaturally quick, near to energetic. “I would have done it. If the offer had been made to me, I would have taken it, gladly. To not remember...”

The thought had occurred to Python, as well, that his not remembering may have been a blessing. But then there had been the nightmares, the baseless scrutiny of his caregivers, and the knowledge that whether he remembered or not, he _had_ done something horrible, and there was no real relief to having forgotten what that something was. But Lukas spoke with a distant longing, and Python knew he was reliving some memory of his own. He wondered what had broken this once stalwart man, wondered which of them was the more thoroughly beaten.

“What happened to _you_ , Lukas?” he asked. “You weren't with me and Forsyth, were you? So what happened to you?”

“Never mind that,” Lukas said. “I only meant that having made the choice you did doesn't make you a monster. And if it did, you needn't bear that guilt alone.” He paused. “You were taken under my watch, you know. This was my failure as much as it was yours.”

“You weren't there,” Python said again. “I'm not seein' the connection.”

“I was your commander, and I led you to this. You both were my responsibility.”

“Then weren't you Clive's?” Lukas turned to look at him sharply, mouth set to an angry frown, and no, the fire in his eyes had not died out, not entirely. Before he could respond, Python continued, “See, that's what I mean. Blaming Clive—blaming your commander—for your own fuck-up just feels wrong, doesn't it? So how am I supposed to blame you?”

Lukas was silent, but his frown didn't ease any. Python sighed.

“Alright, look,” he said, “I'm not sure I'm in any place to be doing it, but hey: I absolve you. You're forgiven. Whatever I did, it had nothin' to do with you, so stop beatin' yourself up over it. That help any?”

He was startled by Lukas's laugh, low and helpless and it lasted only a moment, but even for that moment Python heard the wrongness to it. There was an edge to it that nearly turned it to a cry. He wondered what might be running through Lukas's mind, considered his own thoughts, and decided he might prefer not knowing. Lukas smiled at him, crooked, and some of the dullness in his eyes had cracked to reveal a bare pain underneath. That, somehow, was worse than the lifelessness.

“Perhaps it doesn't matter,” Lukas said. “Perhaps there are some hurts which simply can't be healed.”

* * *

Python was in the empty field once more, a fathomless dark staved off only by dull orange torchlight. He heard the distant sounds of battle, of metal clashing and voices shouting, but it came to him as if through a filter, so that he was aware of it and yet it seemed very far away. He strained his eyes to see, but anything more than a few feet in front of him was blurred, and then beyond that was black.

He stepped forward, and the torches at the edges of his vision moved with him. With each step, they reformed, and soon they had lined up neatly in a path for him to follow. He walked along it, over the vague dark shape that must have been grass, and he tried still to take in his surroundings, but anything outside the torchlight remained elusive. He thought the war sounds must have come from that unreachable place.

The lights went on for an unnameable time, and when they stopped, it was abrupt. He had been walking, and then he wasn't anymore, and that was all the understanding Python had of the strange journey. The din of battle had long since faded, and all that remained was an eerie silence. He was surrounded by a circle of torches, and he was alone.

All at once, the torches blew out, and with them went the darkness. He was in full daylight now, and the grass was sprinkled in patches of mountain snow, and ahead of him was a great, old castle, but it was far away and unimportant because right before him was the only thing that had ever really mattered here.

This was how Forsyth died, he thought, as he stared at the corpse laid out mockingly on the cold ground. His eyes were drawn down and then he couldn't turn away, neck going stiff as he took in the body before him, vision focused on the neat cut through the fabric of Forsyth's undershirt—gone right below the hook of his chestplate, just above the waist. Whoever had run him through, they'd done it by luck alone (or so Python tried to convince himself). A lance, then, by the size of the wound, which presented itself as nothing more than a clean, pale hole in Forsyth's skin, barely large enough to expose the dull red tangle of his innards.

There was no blood. His corpse was immaculate, pale and frozen, as if it were nothing more than a prop, the workings of some cruel sideshow trick. Python could not turn away. He wanted to—or barring that, to reach out, to feel for himself this sick truth, but he was rooted to the spot, helpless.

It was the wound he found himself most drawn to: the clean, bloodless wound. And as he stared at it and wondered at the impossibility of it, it began to bubble with a liquid black as tar, which spilled forth and stained the snow. Then it seemed the corpse was naked, and the blackness coursed from his wound beneath the skin through his dead veins, snaking along his chest, his neck, over his jaw, his nose, to his eyes—

Forsyth opened his eyes, and there was nothing there but peerless dark. Python stared into them and thought of a starless night, twisted in the worst ways. He thought of emptiness, and as sure as he saw it he felt it in himself and had the sudden fear that his own eyes had gone black. He couldn't look away.

Those black eyes shifted almost imperceptibly, only a ripple in the sable pool, and then they met Python's own. Forsyth's lips twitched into a crooked smile. He opened his mouth, and the rot gushed over his tongue and between his teeth, dribbled over his lips to the ground and still he smiled. He laughed, and Python heard the sound of crunching leaves, and then Forsyth's voice was like the crackle of ice breaking over a frozen lake.

“You killed me,” he said.

Then, over his shoulder, like warmth returned, “You did worse than that.”

Whatever spell the corpse had divined, Python suddenly found himself able to turn away. He spun around, and there was Forsyth, whole and hale, staring at him with crossed arms and a frown on his face. He shook his head and sighed.

“Honestly, Python, what foolishness is this?” he said. “I was there for all of it, and I can tell you, _this_ certainly never happened. What an awful image! How on earth do you come up with these things?”

Python turned again and the corpse was still there, but the black had gone back to red, and there was an almost peaceful look to its face.

“There, that's better,” Forsyth muttered. “Not...not much, I suppose, but that should be more what it was like.” He paused. “I mean, I never I saw it, of course, but it _feels_ more like—it ought to be—well, anyway, it's _better_.”

“What the hell part of _this_ is better?” Python said, a startled laugh escaping his lips.

“Well, it's certainly not worse!” Forsyth protested. “And it may be your dream, but it's _my_ body, so I think I ought to have a say in it.”

Python stared at his hands, lips curled into a smile, feeling completely helpless in what should have been his own domain. “I'm dreaming, huh?” he said.

“Yes,” Forsyth replied. He shuddered. “You're considerably more imaginative than I would have guessed.”

Python looked around and saw the image his mind had conjured: the empty battlefield, the decaying castle, the frozen corpse. He'd never been taken to flights of fancy; perhaps it was just as well, if this was where it led.

He closed his eyes and breathed deep through his nose. He forgot the cold and the pain. If this was his dream, he would make it one worth dreaming. He opened his eyes.

They were standing at the top of a hill outside of their hometown. The hill was a tiny, insignificant thing that matched their little town perfectly. The two of them had played here often as children, Python whiling away his time and Forsyth entertaining a grander future. This town, this hill—none of it held any deeper meaning to Python than its irrevocable proof of his origin, so he couldn't have said why his mind chose to to bring them here. It was peaceful, at least. If Forsyth was at all surprised, he made no show of it.

Without a word, they sat down in the fresh green grass, a pleasant Pegastym breeze drifting through and carrying with it the subtle scent of coming rains. The sky overhead burned softly with the purple-orange hues of the setting sun. They intertwined their hands.

For the first time in a very long time, Python felt at peace. He looked to the sky and felt the warmth of Forsyth's hand, and he steeled himself for a truth long-coming.

“Tell me what I did to you,” Python said.

“I'm more concerned about what you did to yourself,” Forsyth replied.

“I'm not.”

Forsyth sighed. “But that _is_ what you did to me. Until you sold yourself, I was free. I was ready to die—proud to, for a cause—and you took that from me. Python, I had to watch you suffer and know it was all my fault. You know what that's like.”

He did; he relived it in every wretched dream, felt it even now as he held Forsyth beside him. The memory of that, whether factual or imagined, had left its mark and he would never be free of it. It might dull with time, but it would never be so faded as to disappear.

“It wasn't your choice to make,” Forsyth continued. He squeezed Python's hand once and released it. He stood, and Python's eyes trailed him as he completed the motion, tall and proud against the painted sky. “You broke my heart.” He leaned over and kissed Python's forehead, lips warm and soft.

“I forgive you,” he said.

Python breathed deep, closed his eyes and leaned back. He couldn't have said whether the cry that escaped his lips was one of humor or grief, any more than he could have stopped himself from questioning: “I gotta ask: are you real, or are you just another dream?”

There was no response.

* * *

“I remember.”

Whichever of his caretakers had meant to greet him that morning, it was Sonya who actually walked through the door. Python hazarded a guess that Genny had gone to fetch her when she'd realized the lock on the door was undone. Either way, upon her arrival, Sonya was pale-faced, jaw clenched in anxious worry and hands glowing with the soft light of readied magic. She relaxed somewhat when she caught sight of Python still laying in bed, releasing the power and letting her hands fall limply back to her side.

When Python spoke, she registered his words with faint surprise, a minute widening of her eyes, and then she leaned back against the wall and glared at him.

“You made fine work of that lock,” she grumbled. He shrugged and she said, “Who told you?”

“Lukas,” he replied. He saw no harm in that. “All the important parts, anyway. Turns out I already knew some of it: I just didn't know it was real. I thought they were nightmares; go figure.”

“Reality can be worse than nightmares,” Sonya said. She added, “Which you also should have told us about, if you were having them.”

“You don't really inspire a lot of trust.”

Sonya ignored him. “So it was Lukas, was it?” She hummed. “I didn't think he'd speak to you after what you'd done.”

The specifics of what he'd done still eluded Python, though he'd laced together the greater pieces. He believed one day he would assemble the entire pictures, built on dreams threaded with the fine lines of memory lost. If it took him many years to complete, he wouldn't be bothered. The pieces he had were not fondly recalled. He remembered Clive's end now. He wished that he didn't. He wondered how many others he'd hurt.

Sonya continued to look to him coldly, without the barest hint of compassion, and he didn't doubt it was deserved. She'd told him once that he'd never hurt her. This scorn was entirely for the person he was, not for any action he'd taken.

“You really hate me, don't you?” he said.

Sonya furrowed her brow. After a moment, she clicked her tongue and shook her head. She moved away from the wall, striding briskly to the chair at his bedside, the one Genny had so often occupied. She sat down and crossed one leg over the other, and she smirked.

“Hate you? I wouldn't call it that; I barely know you,” she said. “But I know what you've done. I've devoted my life to restoring the souls of witches, women who were sacrificed to Duma. I never cured a single one. Do you know why my spell worked on you?” He shook his head. “I suspect it's because you were never sacrificed at all. I know what you did. You _chose_ your fate.” She paused. “No, I don't hate you,” she said again. “I find you repulsive. Was it worth it, in the end? Trading your humanity for a taste of power?”

“That's not why I did it,” he said.

Sonya's skepticism was clear in her expression. She flipped her hair over her shoulder, leaned back with her chin in the air, and crossed her arms. She raised one brow and and smirked, a vicious thing. “Oh?” she said. “If not for power, then pray tell: what _did_ so tempt you? What was so enticing that you offered yourself to a mad god in order to obtain it? Truly, I'd love to know.”

Absurdly, Python believed her. Beneath the bite of her tone was a desperation he nearly sympathized with, though he'd no intimation of its origin. There was a strange weakness in this strong woman, a vulnerability he'd never seen—that she'd never seen fit to show, and he wondered whether he was the first to realize it. She _did_ want to understand what he'd done, as disgusted as she was by his decision.

“It was me or him,” Python said finally. “That's what they gave me: they told me I could save him.”

“Your friend,” Sonya said slowly. Bluntly: “The one who's dead now. I spoke to Lukas too, you know.”

“It sounded like a better deal at the time.” His attempt at humor fell flat, and he supposed that was just as well. The words sounded hollow to his own ears, said more for routine than any true feeling. It had never seemed like a good deal, was the truth of it. But when the other option was to watch Forsyth suffer—he saw those dreams of the prison cell, Forsyth's flayed back, Python's own aching bones and the gnawing hunger—when his choice was to let Forsyth suffer or to bring the farce to an end, it wasn't really a choice at all. Forsyth would have died either way. Python wondered whether he'd spared him any pain at all, in the end.

“What happens now?” he said tiredly. “You were keepin' me locked me up to see if the cure would stick, yea? Well, I remember now, and I'm still me.” He gestured to his own body. “I don't think this thing is coming undone.”

“At this point, I'm inclined to agree,” Sonya said. She glanced to the door. “And if I bothered with a new lock, I'm sure you'd find a way past that one, too.”

“Probably,” Python agreed. “Nothin' personal; just not a huge fan of closed quarters.”

Sonya rolled her eyes. “I have nothing else for you,” she said. “I'll make my report to the king, but beyond that, it's your decision. To the best of my knowledge, you're a free man: you've been acquitted of any crimes you may have committed in your altered state.”

“Just like that?” Python said, wary of the sweet promise. It sounded far too good to be true, and he'd been a cynical man long before this ordeal.

“The queen is sympathetic to your plight,” Sonya said vaguely, and Python couldn't have guessed at her meaning, but she sounded sure of it. She was likely being truthful with him when she said he was free to do as he pleased, to go wherever he liked. But...

“There's nowhere for me to go,” he realized. From the moment he'd left his hometown, he'd been following Forsyth. He'd never really had a goal of his own, beyond escaping the confines of his father's house and the future that had been chosen for him. Even when he'd left, the decision hadn't been his own: it was Forsyth's imperturbable determination that had led them both away from that droll lifestyle. And then Python had become a soldier, but he knew immediately that he would never wield a bow again, not without seeing the thing he had once become.

He had no one to follow now, and no dream of his own. Nowhere to go.

“I'm sure you'll think of something,” Sonya drawled, inspecting her nails. Python stared at her and had the wild thought that she might be right, as the beginnings of a plan began to form in his mind.

“You talked about curing witches,” he said. Sonya paused in her work to look at him suspiciously, and Python continued, “I could help.”

“You?” Sonya said with a condescending smirk. “How are _you_ going to help me? You're not a mage, and I'd wager you're not much of a scholar, either. I already have an assistant in Genny. What use could I possibly have for you?”

“I can tell you what it's like.” She'd sought understanding from him, and he'd given what he could, but there was more to be said. He hadn't remembered it all yet, and perhaps there was some key in that forgotten time, something that might bolster her own efforts to save the others like him. That there even were others like him was a truth that stung, and he felt a desperation to be a part of the cure, to see others like himself and to learn whether that sting could be eased.

“You don't get it,” he continued. “You said the cure wasn't working, and maybe it's because you don't really know what you're working _with_. I know it. I lived it.” He couldn't face her as he spoke next, the finality of his words sunk in. “Those people you're tryin' to save? You'll never understand 'em the way I do. You can't.”

Sonya watched him carefully, and he had the sensation of being scrutinized. Whether she thought he intended some trickery or simply disagreed with his assessment, her hesitation was clear. Still, she looked him over and when she was done, she sighed deeply. She looked at him with pity in her eyes, and he didn't flinch away from it. If he had become a pitiable thing, it was nothing less than he deserved.

“I find I've little left to lose these days,” Sonya said. “Very well. I've my doubts, but we'll see how useful you prove to be.” She shrugged. “At the very least, we could use someone to carry our things. You're not too proud for that, are you?”

“Who, me?” Python said. There was the impulse to make a joke of it: a proud man could never have stooped so low as him. But there was a grim closure to all of this, and it bore down on him so that levity was out of reach. The most he managed was a humorless laugh, and Sonya seemed to understand it well enough.

“You'll have your chance at redemption then, if that's what you seek,” she said.

“Yea?” He closed his eyes, mouthed the word silently and felt it roll over his tongue, a bitter thing: redemption. He was doubtful it could ever be attained. Lukas must have been right, when he spoke in the gardens. Some hurts weren't meant to heal.

“Alright,” he said, though everything was wrong. “Let's give it a shot.”

**Author's Note:**

> Stay tuned for the Sonya and Python buddy-cop sequel! ~~haha just kidding, I'm not _that_ cruel~~


End file.
